Thursday, April 18, 2013

ICE SVU Ends Immigration Enforcement

After recently formally announcing a policy that has been in effect for four years, that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will not investigate, detain, arrest, or deport illegal aliens detained by local law enforcement agencies or otherwise brought to ICE's attention, ICE also let it be known that it has decided to end other immigration law enforcement action, such as the investigation of immigration fraud. Instead of enforcing immigration law, ICE has decided that it will be the lead agency investigating child pornography.

WASHINGTON -- More than 200 adults have been arrested in an international investigation of child pornography, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday.

The agency's director, John Morton, said 123 child victims were identified during the five-week investigation, which ended in early December. ICE and local authorities found 110 victims in 19 U.S. states, while the others were living in six countries elsewhere.

Morton declined to provide specific details about which foreign countries were involved, saying only that there were some cases in Mexico.

The investigation, dubbed "Operation Sunflower," was part of ICE's effort to find and rescue victims, and arrest abusers and people who make or transmit child pornography.

"We have to attack child exploitation relentlessly and together. There is no other way, there is no other answer," Morton said. "It is a wrong among wrongs. We are literally defending the defenseless."

For an agency charged with immigration and customs violations, it is remarkably far afield from its enforcement mission.

Alot of Americans were arrested, but no customs or immigration violations were found. This is in direct conflict with its immigration and customs enforcement mission and raison d'etre. And in conflict as well with ICE's claim that it does not have the resources to arrest and deport aliens arrested by local law enforcement agencies.

But it does complement another expansion of the illegal and unconstitutional amnesty that the Obama Regime is pressing. In another act of defiance in the face of statutes, the Regime has decided that illegal aliens sponsored by U.S. citizens for legal permanent residency will no longer have to obtain waivers of grounds of inadmissibility during consular processing of immigrant visas outside the United States. Instead the illegal aliens can apply for waivers of the inadmissibility while in the United States, avoiding the chance of a failure of the application while outside the United States and the legislatively mandated 3 and 10 year bars for those who have been in the United States illegally. The 3 and 10 year bars were intended to discourage illegal immigration. However the Regime wants to encourage illegal immigration.

The Obama administration’s decision this week to ease visa requirements for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants represents its latest move to reshape immigration through executive action, even as the White House gears up for an uncertain political fight over a far-more-sweeping legislative package in the months ahead.

Immigration advocates on Thursday hailed a rule change at the Department of Homeland Security that would make it easier for many undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States as they seek permanent residency, saying it will improve the lives of relatives who could have been separated for years without the changes.

Interestingly enough, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) which is administering this part of the Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty, admits that the current rule that requires the illegal alien to apply at a U.S. consulate overseas before that illegal alien can apply for a waiver of the 3 and 10 year bar, is in fact a law, not a rule or regulation, therefore Constitutionally beyond the authority of the Regime or USCIS to change:

Under current law, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who are not eligible to adjust status in the United States to become lawful permanent residents must leave the U.S. and obtain an immigrant visa abroad. Individuals who have accrued more than six months of unlawful presence while in the United States must obtain a waiver to overcome the unlawful presence inadmissibility bar before they can return to the United States after departing to obtain an immigrant visa. Under the existing waiver process, which remains available to those who do not qualify for the new process, immediate relatives cannot file a waiver application until after they have appeared for an immigrant visa interview abroad and the Department of State has determined that they are inadmissible.

Of more import though is that in and of itself the domestic processing of the waiver should not be of import. The waiver requires that the American citizen applying for a waiver for the alien prove that the American citizen will experience extreme hardship without the presence of the illegal alien in question.

In order to obtain a provisional unlawful presence waiver, the applicant must be an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen, inadmissible only on account of unlawful presence, and demonstrate the denial of the waiver would result in extreme hardship to his or her U.S. citizen spouse or parent.

Going back to the WaPo story, we get only one example, a State of California law enforcement officer who is married to an illegal alien from El Salvador.

Michelle Escobar, 38, a U.S. citizen who lives in Laurel, said her husband, German, 33, plans to apply for a waiver under the new rule. Until now, she said, he had been afraid to go to his native El Salvador to apply.

“He would be barred for 10 years, probably,” said Escobar, a state investigator. “That’s why we’ve been so scared to put in for it.”

According to the law, she could not meet the level of extreme hardship. She is obviously the main bread winner in the household. Investigators in various State of California law enforcement and regulator agencies are highly paid, with those with over 10 years seniority earning over $6,000 a month, plus benefits and an retirement system where they retire at 100% of their base pay. So just how is Michelle Escobar going to prove extreme hardship? She can't.

And therein lies the problem, or how this other aspect of the Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty will operate. The so-called provisional waivers will be nothing more than a paperwork exercise, with adjudicating officers ordered to approve any and all applications regardless of the legal standard for "extreme hardship."

Here is the standard as accurately described by a member of the Treason Bar:

In these cases an applicant for an immigrant or K visa is required to submit an extreme hardship or I-601 waiver, so called as the form to be submitted is form I-601.

The waiver application has to be extremely well documented to have a good chance of success

Approval of such application requires a finding that the refusal of admission to the United States of such immigrant alien would result in extreme hardship to the United States citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse or parent of the applicant Approval also requires a favorable exercise of discretion from the Attorney General. This requires a weighing of all factors, the favorable against the unfavorable, in each case.

All claims of hardship must be supported by documentary evidence or explanation specifying the hardship. Family separation and financial inconvenience, in and of themselves, do not necessarily constitute extreme hardship. Therefore, it is important for your spouse or parent to describe and document any other claim that might be a hardship. The above-requested information is necessary to render an equitable and fair decision on your Application for Waiver of Grounds of Excludability (I-601).

A waiver of section 212 of the Immigration and Nationality Act is dependent first upon a showing that the bar imposes an extreme hardship on a qualifying family member. Congress provided this waiver but limited its application. By such limitation it is evident that it did not intend that a waiver be granted merely due to the fact that a qualifying relationship existed. The key term in the provision is "extreme" and thus only in cases of real actual or prospective injury to the United States national or lawful permanent resident will the bar be removed. Common results of the bar, such as separation, financial difficulties, etc., in themselves are insufficient to warrant approval of an application unless combined with much more extreme impacts. Matter of Ngai, 19 I & N Dec. 245. With this qualification in mind, furnish documentary evidence proving that failure to receive the waiver requested would result in extreme hardship to your US citizen spouse or parent.

So, coming soon, another aspect of the Obama Regime Administrative Amnesty, open and flagrant misconduct and malfeasance by USCIS and its officers.